


the thing we don't talk about

by youcouldmakealife



Series: no expectation of returns [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 15:24:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Okay?” Stephen asks, sort of lurking, and Gabe reels him in with his free hand, plants a kiss against his temple. Stephen settles against him with a sigh, skin warm under Gabe’s lips, and for a second Gabe’s heart catches, hard, before the feeling, like always, goes away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the thing we don't talk about

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings at the end.

At the end of Vancouver’s home-stand, Stephen’s still there, finally ceding to finding a doctor once Gabe starts nagging him, since Anouk has been nagging _him_ , what with Stephen ducking her calls. He isn’t hiding in the guest room like he hid at home, will tuck himself against Gabe on the couch and make him watch the Penguins game from the night before, has been trying to make himself useful in the kitchen, which has resulted in a few disasters, but he’s better than Gabe, even one-handed, so Gabe’s okay with cleaning up after him. He hasn’t said anything about going to a game, and Gabe’s not going to ask, even though he wants to, even if it gets under his skin a little, Stephen on his couch, watching the game, while the Rogers Centre practically rings with silence to Gabe’s ears, even amidst all the noise.

The end of the home-stand kicks off an equally long roadtrip, a brutal one, four games in the frost-bitten East in quick succession, and Gabe’s afraid Stephen’s going to disappear, get bored in the empty house, realise Vancouver isn’t any more of an escape than Toronto, not really, and then run off to somewhere else. It’s somewhat abated by a string of cheerfully mocking texts when Vancouver immediately drops two, and then some over-filtered picture of a plate of food on Gabe’s kitchen table that not only looks edible, but actually delicious. Either he’s improving, or he got delivery and went to the extra effort of putting it on a plate just to fool everyone into thinking he has actual skills. Gabe wouldn’t put it past him.

The final game, against Buffalo, falls on Purim, and Gabe plays. He’s played through all of the holidays, even the ones he definitely shouldn’t--Passover is pretty much exactly the opposite of a good time in the hockey season, and if he tried to fast during Yom Kippur he thinks the nutritionist would actually force-feed him. This is not the kind of career where you get to take holidays off, or, hell, slight illness, minor family emergencies, has seen guys look wrung out, stressed from leaving sick kids at home. Anything but injury or disaster is just an excuse. He’s okay with it, honestly, his family was the kind that really only went to Temple on Yom Kippur, and he only agreed to Hebrew lessons because he wanted his Bar Mitzvah money. Which his parents ended up putting in a university fund, for all the good that did.

His parents come out to the Buffalo game, and that’s enough, honestly, even though he dimly craves a proper Purim dinner, even if he can’t see them for much more than hugs, the team getting on a plane almost directly after the game, a win at least, since everyone would prefer some shitty sleep on the plane and then better sleep in their own beds than another night away from home. 

It’s basically the middle of the night when Gabe gets home, but he comes back to a bright house, walks in then stops, confused, because his place is actually clean. Not just clean, Gabe’s not absolutely terrible about that, he picks up after himself and finds vacuuming kind of calming after a stupid loss, but this is a whole different clean.

“Did you hire cleaners?” Gabe calls out, and Stephen pops out of the kitchen.

“Who said I didn’t do it myself?” Stephen scowls.

Gabe raises an eyebrow. He doesn’t even need to look at Stephen’s wrist; when Stephen had two good hands he _still_ never willingly cleaned. 

“Whatever,” Stephen says. “I made you dinner.”

“It’s almost two,” Gabe argues, but wanders into the kitchen anyway, because something smells awesome. He stops short, because once inside he recognizes the smell, the crockpot on the counter. There’s challah on the kitchen table in a bag from the bakery downtown that is a pale imitation of Toronto’s best, but as close as Gabe can get. 

“It’s brisket,” Stephen says, redundantly. “Your mom said even you couldn’t screw it up, so I figure it’ll be good. I don’t know about the kreplach though, they’re in the fridge but they look kind of lumpy. Soup smelled good though.”

“Buddy,” Gabe says, finally. 

“Whatever,” Stephen says, “You should just know that this is going to be an Easter house. You are going to eat ham, and you are going to like it.”

Stephen’s had enough of this that it’s authentic, reminds Gabe of when half the school got off for Jewish holidays and Stephen complained endlessly of having to go, and Gabe doing nothing and then getting a freaking feast, and would only shut up when Gabe brought him leftovers. On the flipside, he’d eat pizza with extreme relish when Gabe sullenly munched on matzo during Passover, and his family came for at least one night of Hanukkah annually, where Stephen ate literally every latke in front of him, including any Gabe had, the same way Gabe popped in on the Petersen’s Christmas afternoon hunting for cookies, so Gabe found Stephen’s injured martyrdom annoying as hell. Still let him steal bites of brisket, though. 

Gabe forks some brisket directly from the crockpot to a plate, the meat soft, falling apart between the tines. It’s missing something his mom did, maybe, some imbalance in the spicing, but it’s good anyway. 

“Okay?” Stephen asks, sort of lurking, and Gabe reels him in with his free hand, plants a kiss against his temple. Stephen settles against him with a sigh, skin warm under Gabe’s lips, and for a second Gabe’s heart catches, hard, before the feeling, like always, goes away.

*

They’d been fourteen the only time it happened, had been complaining about being hard up for years, like they’d have known what to do with anyone if they got their hands on them. Gabe doesn’t even remember what they were talking about, something about porn, since this was before they’d guiltily hidden their sex lives from one another, the only thing they bothered to actually hide, beyond why the fuck they were doing it. 

He still remembers the kick of his heartbeat in his chest, though, so fast he thought he was dying, Stephen’s hand kind of clumsy, at first, then a little more sure, but still too rough; the strangeness of foreskin under his fingers, and the sticky head of Stephen’s cock smearing pre-come over his fingers. He’d been close, it’d been the first time any hand had been on his cock other than his own, and too rough and clumsy didn’t matter, when Gabe’s mom called them to dinner from right outside his door, maybe six feet away from where they were hunched into one another. Gabe had pulled his hand back so quickly he almost pulled a muscle, stared at Stephen in dim horror because there was no lock on his door and she could have walked in as easy as anything else, wouldn’t have expected to walk in on anything, because why should she?

They went down to dinner, and Stephen stayed just long enough to push his food around, to answer Gabe’s parents when they directly asked him something, careful not to meet Gabe’s eye, not kicking him under the table like he usually did. He’d practically run home, after, but the next morning, walking to school, he was just the same as always, and so was Gabe.

Two months later Gabe got his first ‘real’ handjob in Mandy Corner’s basement, got his hand up her shirt, and told Stephen about it, all of it. Two months after that, Stephen did the same fucking thing, down to the Mandy Corner aspect, and Gabe was furious with him, though not because of Mandy, who Gabe had barely seen since, had been avoiding. He’d felt hot and sick and jealous, and didn’t want to examine why, ears red, cheeks flushed, wanted to punch Stephen in the fucking face, but two hours later Stephen let Gabe copy off his math homework, and Gabe forgot why he’d been mad in the first place.

Stephen ended up dating Mandy for two weeks, even though he didn’t seem to like her, because he was that kind of guy, he’d always been that kind of guy, it was one of the things that Gabe liked best about him, because he wasn’t. She ended up dumping him for one of the guys on the rugby team, and Stephen had been indignant for about five minutes before he forgot about it, and they didn’t talk about any of it, from Mandy on back, not ever.

*

“Almost as good as mom makes,” Gabe says, and Stephen looks pleased. “And she’s the best.”

Stephen’s eyes narrow, and Gabe has to bite back a laugh, because this has been an ongoing debate for at least ten years, and Stephen’s way too easy to rile up. “My _dad_ ,” he retorts, loyal reflex.

“You admitted it,” Gabe points out. “You can’t take it back now.”

“I was _high_ ,” Stephen whines. “There were _latkes_. You can’t hold me to it forever.”

“Watch me,” Gabe says, and Stephen wriggles out from under Gabe’s grip, goes for the challah.

“You don’t get any of this,” he says, holding the loaf to his chest, paper bag crinkling. “I’ll throw it out.”

“You would never,” Gabe points out.

“Fine,” Stephen says. “I’ll eat it. I’ll eat it in bed and leave crumbs everywhere.”

Gabe winces, and Stephen looks triumphant, which Gabe, of course, can’t let happen. Nothing good ever comes out of Stephen looking triumphant. Gabe lunges for it, and Stephen pulls back, sticks his tongue out of him like he’s still a fucking _child_. Gabe manages to have just enough leverage to plaster himself against Stephen’s back, half over him, tries to wrestle it out of his hands, and when the back of his hand knocks hard against Stephen’s splint Stephen can’t muffle the sound that comes out of him, high and pained. Gabe pulls back like he’s been burnt.

“I’m sorry,” he says, so fast his tongue trips over the words. “Shit, Stephen, I am so fucking sorry.”

Stephen’s back is to him, a tight line, one hand still holding the challah, the other pulled in against his chest. 

“Do you need ice?” Gabe asks, “painkillers? Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“Stop it,” Stephen says, quiet.

“Stop what?” Gabe asks, so hoping it’s something he can.

“Stop it,” Stephen says, louder. “Just--I’m not a fucking _cripple_.”

“I know,” Gabe says dumbly.

“Just--Just go away,” Stephen says, high and wounded and Gabe wants nothing more than to go to him but he thinks if he did Stephen would punch him. “Just fuck off.”

The kitchen’s a mess, brisket still in the crockpot, dishes piled in the sink, and if Gabe doesn’t clean up, no one’s going to; the brisket will dry out by morning, the shit on the dishes, the pots, will have hardened, but Gabe doesn’t say any of that, doesn’t even reach out to touch Stephen’s shoulder, no matter how much he wants to, just says “Sorry,” once more, quiet, and goes upstairs to his room, goes to lie down, punch at his mattress, because he doesn’t know what he wants to punch (not Stephen, never that), but he wants to hurt _something_ for the way Stephen’s hurting, and he can’t.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Warning:** Semi-explicit consensual sex between two minors (14). As always, continuing depiction of career-ending injury. 
> 
> As always, here is my [tumblr](http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/), and a [humble (and humbled) request](http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/post/69915515869/a-humble-and-humbled-request).
> 
> I have tried to portray Jewish holidays as accurately as possible from my experiences with them, and have had the relevant parts fact-checked, but if anything is glaringly inaccurate, let me know.


End file.
